My name is Craig and I am one of the two people working the website, live scoring, video interviews/highlights, pics, etc.  I would first like to say thank everyone very much for visiting our site.  We have had a few minor problems, and I aplogize for that, but this is the first year we have done these sorts of things and glitches are part of the process.  We are already in talks with major sponsors for next year to upgrade our site tremendously.  Things we are looking into for next year will be two live webcame at the back of both major courts above the tarp.  We will stream live matches to everyone.  We will hopefully be able to reduce the size of each download so we/you have a quicker time in that process.  Enough about that.....

Lets talk about some of your boys.  I must say, I have met Jamie Baker, Ross Hutchins, Josh Goodall and Jamie Murray.  This is my 4th Dallas Challenger and have made friends during these years that I keep in touch with on a weekly basis, and I can honestly say I think I have found a few more......this time from over the pond.  I got the priviledge to meet Jamie's coach(Keith) and had a few lengthy conversations about tennis and his pupils game.  I enjoyed that time tremendously.  Over the years I have learned not to become to pushy with the players on relationships, if they need or want something they will come to you in one of two ways: 1-"i need this, i need that" or 2-"could i please ask a favor of you if you dont mind".  The latter has been the case with my encounters with the earlier mentioned lads.  If you don't mind me rambling(as its 12.52am here in the states) I would like to mention a few of these encounters I have had so far this week.  Jamie and Keith came to me and asked if they could view the website and see if we had any footage that was good enough to send to sponsors(racquets/clothing).  So we took a few photos, made them into stills and sent them via email to Jamie and Keith.  Unfortunately, sometimes in this business you won't get a thank you(not that i was looking for one) of any sort, but within hours I had an email from Keith and the next day Jamie and I chatted for a few mintues.  There is one more Baker story:  We have sponsor booths behind our courts and Jamie noticed this one booth set up that had nice framed pics of tennis players.  He found one he was very found of(Andre Agassi) and came to me for a favor.  "Hey Craig, I'm heading off to Joplin tomorrow and really want this pic.  The bidding closes on Saturday and I wont be here, so if I sign my name and someone outbids me, will you be kind enough to add my name below his so I can win this thing?"  Of course my response was yes, so we swapped cell #'s and hopefully we will chat after a Baker victory on(joplin) and off the court(winning the Agassi pic).  He didn't have to ask so politely, but he did, and I think we will stay in touch as he turns into a fine pro.

One more story.  Your two mates, Goodall and Hutchins are a blast.  Besides both having big games on the court, we shared a few laughs off of it as well.  We try to make our Challenger different from any other on tour and I believe that came across to these guys.  We host player parties, have great accomodations, give away prizes, have a player/member super bowl party(football) and now are introducing the braingame website.  Almost half of our main draw players get housing through our great membership at the club.  Of course with Ross and Josh not knowing this, we got them a great suite at a nearby hotel for a nice players price.  One afternoon after they had been eliminated from doubs, they were waiting on the hotel shuttle and found out it would be another hour before it could make it back to our club.  So I had a few free mintues and offered to take them myself.  On the ride over they just didn't sit there and not say a word.  I had two carseats in my backseat and had to remove one so Josh could sit in the back and he initiated conversation about my family(kids/wife) which I thought was pretty cool.  Again, they could have just sat there for the 5 mintue ride, but no, we talked about our Challenger, music(JT) and to make sure they contacted me next year so I can hook them up with some housing.

I apologize for making this into a school essay, but I just wanted to let you guys/girls know that you should be proud of your up and coming players on and off the court.  True gents.

Please keep visiting our site to watch the semis and finals.  Butorac/Murray will be first on(friday) and we will definitely have a postgame interview with the winner....hopefully Butorac/Murray.  By the way, Parrott is not playing with Butorac anymore, so hopefully Murray and Butorac will form a great team that will last for awhile.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.  Friday matches start at 1pm(central).  Follow it here:  www.thebraingame.net